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Old Friday, December 21, 2012
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Default Pakistan from Welfare State to Security State

Pakistan from Welfare State to Security State

Stephen Cohen in 'The Future of Pakistan' opines that the generals of the Pak army know “that the country is falling behind its peers, notably India, yet there is no consensus as to what has to be done.” Cohen continues that there is also a “remote prospect of an army-led transformation of Pakistan, one in which the generals became true revolutionaries, perhaps along the lines of the Turkish army years ago, or more recently, the Indonesian army.”


Saturday, September 01, 2012

The Pak army is learning, albeit grudgingly, that a one-dimensional National Security Strategy singularly focused on 'defence' cannot guarantee the longevity of the Pakistani nation-state. One 'D' may have length but has no depth, width or height. Our future depends on three Ds, not one. They are: defence, development and diplomacy. The 'Future of Pakistan' has become a hot favourite both within and outside Pakistan. Experts – and groups of experts – are undertaking detailed scenario analysis weighing a whole host of hypotheses and trying to branch “potential outcomes from them”. Experts – and groups of experts – are “analysing possible future events by considering alternative possible outcomes.” The most frequently debated scenarios are:

SCENARIO 1
The Failed State Scenario: For the past seven years, Fund for Peace, the Washington-based think-tank, has been publishing the Failed States Index. As per the Index, the top-three 'failed states' are Somalia, Chad and Sudan. Somalia hasn't had an effective government since 1991. Economic growth is stuck at under three per cent and the economy is dependent on foreign remittances and the informal sector. The Somali National Army (SNA) consists of 4,000 soldiers and is in no position to rein in widespread anarchy. Additionally, the Somali National Army has failed to keep the northern clans from declaring independence. Can Pakistan become Asia's Somalia? Our economic and governance indicators are moving in that direction except for Pakistan's army, the 617,000 strong, disciplined force. Pakistan will not become Asia's Somalia for as long as the Pak army remains an undivided, disciplined entity.

SCENARIO 2
Balkanisation: Yugoslavia was a country. No more. Yugoslavia split into Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia. Josip Tito, from 1943 till his death in 1980, served as the supreme commander of the Yugoslav People's Army (YPA) holding the rank of marshal of Yugoslavia. Marshal Tito, with 620,000 active duty personnel of the YPA under this command kept, Yugoslavia intact. Within eleven years of Tito's death the YPA clashed with Slovenia Territorial Defence in the Ten Day War. The weakened YPA then took on Croatian forces of independence. And then came the Bosnian War. Can Pakistan become Asia's Yugoslavia? Pakistan will not become Asia's Yugoslavia for as long as the Pak army remains an undivided, disciplined entity.

SCENARIO 3
A theocracy: In 1979, Iran adopted a theocratic constitution and became Jomhuri-ye Eslami-ye Iran. Saudi Arabia has been al-Mamlakah al-Arabiyah as-Su udiyah since the Kingdom was founded in 1932. Can Pakistan become a theocratic state? Pakistan, unlike Iran and Saudi Arabia, is essentially a multi-faith society and the probability of Pakistan becoming a theocracy is very, very low.

SCENARIO 4
Muddling through: If Pakistan isn't going to fail or disintegrate then the probability is high that we will just muddle through – “continue despite confusion and difficulties.” Some experts have also hinted at a 'democratic consolidation' but an almost certain deterioration in almost all elements of national power including economics, social and political but muddle through nevertheless — at least for the foreseeable future.

Stephen Cohen in 'The Future of Pakistan' opines that the generals of the Pak army know “that the country is falling behind its peers, notably India, yet there is no consensus as to what has to be done.” Cohen continues that there is also a “remote prospect of an army-led transformation of Pakistan, one in which the generals became true revolutionaries, perhaps along the lines of the Turkish army years ago, or more recently, the Indonesian army.”

In essence, the Pak army plays the central role in almost every future scenario and the one indicator to be watched is the army's public image and its internal cohesion. The future, they say, “is much like the present, only longer”. Others say that the future will be “exactly like the past only far more expensive and far more chaotic.”

Dr Farrukh Saleem
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